Tag Archives: India

I was traveling around India with Sevn McAuley. In the dream I was reading an English newspaper that had an article by you, or about you, with a beautiful photo of you (older in your life).

In the article you were quoted as saying, “I am need.”

It was strong. During the traveling I thought I lost my fanny pack containing my wallet, passport, etc. and told Sevn we may have to go back and find it. Then I looked in my backpack and it was there at the bottom, under my clothes.

That’s all for now.

All my love, your son,
Laurent

COMMENTARY:

Xia: May I echo Laurent from his chat with Cynthia Barrientos (referenced below), “Need is fuel to arrive at Realization…Realization is Needless.” Through the statement “I am need” Baba is saying that He provides the energy – the provocation, nourishment & propellant – to become Self-Realized.

Laurent: At the time I had this dream, and for some time before I had been contemplating Meher Baba’s “affirmations” and thought of collecting all his words starting with “I am…”, “I was…”, “I will be…”, “I have…” etc. I still intend to create this book.

Shortly after this dream, on June 9, 2010, I had a chat with Cynthia Barrientos during which we discussed the content of the dream, and its possible meanings.

I was with Meher Baba, he was a young man, and exceedingly handsome, beautiful. (Such as seen here.)

We were at the home of an Indian woman disciple of his. She had a dog. It was night time and the woman had shown us the guest room we were to stay in that night to sleep.

Baba liked the room and got into the bed. Baba’s bed was against the wall, in the corner of the room, to the right as you enter. My bed was lower than Baba’s (maybe on the floor even), and I remember my head was towards Baba’s feet. In other words, I was turned around so that where Baba’s feet were in his bed, my head was in my bed, if that makes sense. Also near the foot of my bed was a low sink for water, against the wall.

It was like this:The woman asked Baba, as she was leaving the room, (actually she made a statement) something like, “I should take the dog out of your room…” implying that Baba would be happier if the dog were not in the room. At that point the dog was already lying on the floor, very happy and comfortable. But, Baba said, “No, the dog can stay.”

I remember feeling and thinking – wow, Baba is so warm, and so loving when he just said the dog can stay… It melted me. Then suddenly, the dog just got up and left the room as our hostess was turning off the light and about to leave the room.

Then it was just Baba and me in the room.

I looked over at Baba’s bed. His body and head were completely under a sheet, top to bottom, he was quick to do what he wanted to do. But he had just been having this little conversation about the dog, so I asked, “Baba, are you still awake?” He responded, “yes.”

I said that I had a question. He said, “What is it?” in a compassionate but sort of waiting-to-hear-my-question-before-implying-that-he-would-be-interested-in-dealing-with-it-at-this-bed-time-hour kind of way. I knew I was pushing my luck a bit.

I said, “In Hafiz, there is this word in Persian, ‘Mashuq’… is there really such a word and what is the meaning of this word?” I knew a little about the meaning, but was not sure if it was being properly translated and it had a special importance to me with Baba. There was motion under the sheet, and then Baba appeared, and then he got out of bed, and sort of squatted by the foot of my bed, but over a sink that was there, so I was looking up at him.

He explained all about “mashuq,” and about other related words in Persian to me. I had remembered another Eastern disciple had used certain Persian words in my presence just the other day, different than mashuq but relevant, and asked if that was related, and Baba thoughtfully smiled and said “yes,” and we had more of a conversation about all that.

Then the scene shifted. I was still with Baba. It was very strange. Something I had written about my own spiritual experience was sort of embossed on a piece of metal, gray metal, and put up somewhere where it could be read by others. I had not known about this, but there it was, and I found myself reading it with Baba standing next to me and he also read it with me. In this writing, I had described some spiritual experience (don’t remember what it was now) except I remember that it included “tears,” that is I shared about my crying during the experience. Baba started to explain my own writing to me, saying in effect that this was not the real thing, that it was too much about my emotions.

The whole implication was a kind of a stark, but warmly loving, critique by Baba himself of what I had written. Nothing about the style – purely the content. The essence of what Baba started to say was that, while I had certainly written about something and had experienced something, it was not the real experience. Basically he implied, without saying it directly, that it was not worthy of being written about, certainly not worthy of this treatment, which someone had given it, of being embossed in metal!

I had no trouble understanding his message to me. It was unusual for me to be in this situation, then it seemed as if Baba was searching for what to say more about this to me, to help me, but he became silent. I could tell he wanted me to understand more deeply what the real experience was more like, or more about, but words were not helping. I trusted he would find a way to help me.

Internally I was not crushed, but this conversation had increased my longing for deeper understanding. I wanted more clarity. It was as if Baba had said – not this – but had not given me a, “but that,” yet. If that makes any sense at all.

Then we walked together, I followed Baba to another spot that He wanted to show me. We approached very quietly a place, and as we were outside I could see there were a few people, maybe ten or twelve, all standing but only one saw us, I believe. The rest were totally absorbed in silent devotion, facing away from where we stood, and many had closed eyes. I don’t know what to say about it. I walked up to this place with Baba, but they were so absorbed that they didn’t even see Baba, they were facing something made of stone, kind of like a wall, but I don’t remember much about it… It kind of had the feeling of people who are on the line to enter the Samadhi, and then they get to the Samadhi wall just before the door to the Samadhi, and they turn and face the wall and sometimes hold the wall, or put their head, or hand against the outer wall of the Samadhi, and just pray or become absorbed in love like that.

The Samadhi of Meher Baba, April 10, 2010, photo (c) by L. Weichberger.

It had that feeling of deep love, deep devotion (bhakti), deep longing.

I turned to ask Baba something I was formulating about – what was then my most real experience – meaning, if that other thing I had written was – not the thing – then what, of all the things I had experienced with him, was the most Real? At this point his comments to me had shaken something up, and felt I needed his help to get my bearings.

But, when I turned to Baba, and before I could ask my question out loud, I noticed that his eyes were closed and he was working with these people. They didn’t know he was right there, because they were focused away from him towards this stone-wall-type-area, and I was watching them, and then watching Baba who gestured to me with closed eyes, pointing to the people.

He pointed to them very gracefully, not with a long outstretched arm, but with a gentle, subtle, with arm-barely-raised-at-all motion which I took to mean, “This is not the time for more questions, I am working with them now.” I was deeply touched by the exchange of love between Baba and His own lovers in this way, and it was completely clear to me how pleased he was with their love.

I also took it to mean that this was at least the first part of Baba’s answer to me about what was important to Baba, not the crying, or weeping, or writing of experiences but this silent longing, which he now worked with in front of my very eyes. Even as I was formulating my next question, Baba was giving me the answer in the fact of this place and these people silent loving him. None of them approached Baba.

The scene shifted, as we walked away from the stone area, towards a work area. I was talking with Baba about the people I feel a strong connection with in India, as he seemed to have asked me about this … I mentioned this one and that one, Dolly and Jal, were in my mind but I had to search for names, also Amrit and Dara came to mind, and others, including some westerners living in India, all of which I mentioned to Baba as names came to me.

Upper Meherabad, India, April 10, 2010. Photo (c) by L. Weichberger.

Then we got close to this kitchen work building, and other sort of partially sheltered areas, like roofed shelters with no walls, shaded, for eating or working outside. Heather Nadel was walking around there, and I was so happy to see her, as always. I went into one of the buildings, where I worked, and was thinking about my good fortune to have naturally fallen into a group of workers where I felt completely at home, it was like my little family, and we were so close, and it made me so happy to work with them and share my life with them this way. At this time, other workers were arriving in the area, as we had to prepare and serve a big meal together. I brought something outside to one of the shaded eating areas. It was getting busy.

L.W.

COMMENTARY:

Xia: This encourages me for I have long felt that my desire – my silent, burning longing – which intensely drives my Faith, should be given precedence above beliefs which shape my perception and possibly birth emotions which might be rather inaccurate, or vastly different, in a bigger picture.

Laurent: This is one of the most personal and profound dreams of Meher Baba I have ever had, and to me it spans the spectrum of what I am living with him, including the appearance of dearest Heather Nadel, who recently suffered the loss of her darling husband Erico, and much physical suffering. Honestly, I am still processing this dream and its deeper meaning which I believe is extremely profound, so I have no real comment now, except to say that the part where we walked to where the people were in worship (devotion) but didn’t see Baba, “because they were focused away from him towards this stone-wall-type-area, and I was watching them, and then watching Baba who gestured to me with closed eyes…” had a feeling almost identical to Baba’s Tomb (Samadhi) where his body is buried at Meherabad, but it was a ruin, it was just a partial structure not a building.

I was with Meher Baba in a room. I think we were in India. The way I remember it now, we had journeyed and just arrived there. Baba’s beloved, Mehera, was in the room also, but no one else. Baba was at a desk, and had a phone on the desk, and he was in work-mode (such as seen here). I was sitting on a bench, facing Baba, as he sat behind his desk. Mehera stood behind Baba to his left. Further to her left was a door near the corner of the room, it was closed.

Don Stevens came into the room through this door, and handed Baba a

Don E. Stevens (July 2005) by Richard Griffin.

photocopy of the agenda of an upcoming important meeting. It was many pages, with one special page that had some image on it (I forget the detail of that image).

Don came over to me, handed me a copy of the same agenda, and then he left. He never spoke a word to any of us. Baba pushed a button on his phone and called his secretary, a woman, and he spoke over a speakerphone (intercom), hands free, and he asked her, while looking over the agenda, how many people (legally) he could have attend the meeting, both members and non-members of the board, etc.

In other words, it was to be a clearly very important meeting, and he wanted pack it with as many people as possible, but also be within the bounds of the law.

She explained to Baba who and how many could come. Baba hung up the phone, and wanted to go over the agenda with me and Mehera. But she had not been given a copy. She walked over to where I was sitting, sat down right next to me on my left, and told Baba (or asked) that she would just look along with me, and turned her head slightly to the right, towards the copy of the Agenda I was holding. Then I woke up.

COMMENTARY:

Xia: This reminds me that the Master was a tireless worker. As I read the book Avatar by Jean Adriel I was often impressed by the sheer amount of managerial and organizational type of work Baba routinely performed.

Laurent: This was an unusual dream, as Baba was all work, no play (quite serious) and wanting to work by the rules. The only thing that comes to mind is that when I was a Caretaker at Meher Mount spiritual center (2005-2006), with my wife Lilly and daughter Aspen, I was responsible for the business side of the center. I met with center board members Margaret Magnus and Sam Ervin from time to time. Once, when we had to go over something important for the center business-wise, we only had a copy for Sam and for me, and Sam wanted to go over it with us both, and Margaret came and sat next to me and said to Sam, “I will look along with Laurent.” That reminded me of this dream.

I wrote the following dream, which occurred in July 1992, to Avatar Meher Baba’s disciple Aloba (Ali Akbar Shapurzaman):

Midnight

7.30.92

Dear Aloba,

… I had a dream a few nights back: In one small room about 12 feet square sits Meher Baba against the wall in a chair, with Upasni Maharaj in a chair against the wall on His right, and myself on the floor, against the wall on Baba’s left. There is a door between where Baba is sitting and where I am sitting.

Maharaj is very very old, but healthy still. Baba is old.

In the room on a table is a case which holds three large books, all the same size, painted black, and dated with white letters 1892, 1894, 1896 or around those three dates. 1896 I am sure was one of the dates. These three books were closed in a case-holder, also painted black.

Baba talks to Maharaj, asking about the laws in India in relation to Maharaj being so old: “Can you work now in India?” and, “Can you marry now in India?” … all questions for Maharaj, which starts a conversation which I was invited by Baba to join in. Maharaj was intense, I was afraid to upset him, even in Baba’s presence. I spoke my heart and mind as best I could.

Sadguru Upasni Maharaj of Sakori.

Baba turns to me at one point and says, “Laurent, go get me the black-box from the other room.”

As I get up to go out the door between my seat and Baba’s, I notice a small black briefcase with two silver latches to keep it closed. I leave to the next room to find the black box which Baba had ordered me to bring to him. I look all over the room but do not see it anywhere. There is a very small black piece of furniture with two drawers that are pulled out and empty, but it is not a “black box.” I am thinking what to do – does the furniture pass for a box? No.

Then in my bedroom in Briarcliffe Acres, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, where I am sleeping and dreaming, my telephone rings and wakes me up. I am upset that my telephone kept me from fulfilling Baba’s order in the dream, and I cannot get back into this dream.

I am happy to share this all with you dear brother Aloba. May Baba provide you with all that your heart begs for, as He wishes. Jai Baba!

Faithfully,

Laurent

COMMENTARY:

Xia: I would be interested to know what the phone call was regarding. Sometimes the dream world crosses into the waking world in rather significant yet nebulous ways. As the “black box” wasn’t immediately apparent, could it be that Baba was actually directing Laurent to pick-up the phone? Wouldn’t that be interesting? Also it occurs to me that a “black box” is synonymous with a recording device and Laurent is devoted to sharing the information that has been preserved of Avatar Meher Baba, as a black box might be used.

Laurent: I have dreamt of Shirdi Sai Baba, Upasni Maharaj, and Hazrat Babajan, and they are all totally different personalities (flavors) of Self-realization, and in some way they are all aspect of Avatar Meher Baba. I find it interesting that I was upset that I couldn’t obey the order, even though I realized it was – only a dream, it was still important to me to obey. – LW